What the Liberals lack most is unity of purpose

Not long after I first became a candidate, a seasoned Liberal organizer in Vancouver was despairing that the Liberal Party seemed culturally incapable of meaningful change. New to the party and a freshly minted candidate, I didn’t want to believe him. With the benefit of hindsight, he was right. And I was delusional.

Daniel Veniez is a Vancouver-based entrepreneur who ran for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2011 federal election. An owner, chief executive, advisor to private equity funds, chairman of a federal Crown Corporation, and policy advisor to federal cabinet ministers, Veniez has authored numerous articles on business and public policy.

Not long after I first became a candidate, a seasoned Liberal organizer in Vancouver was despairing that the Liberal Party seemed culturally incapable of meaningful change. He said to me: “We didn’t lose badly enough in 2008. People think that another election is all we need.”

At the time, I took that as the musings of a tired operative. New to the party and a freshly minted candidate, I also didn’t want to believe him. I had an election to win and thought I could. With the benefit of hindsight, he was right. And I was delusional.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that one of the most debilitating and corrosive aspects of the Liberal Party has been the never-ending leadership wars.

When I joined the party in 2009 I discovered that it was unofficially segmented into camps from not only the last leadership contest, but the Chretien-Martin slugfest, and before that, the Turner-Chretien bout. Since 1983, as they reached for the brass ring, leadership contenders pillaged the very party they sought to lead. They did not intend for that to happen, but it did. And the aftershocks linger to this day. Liberal leaders have called for unity only after they inflicted massive damage on their party.

Stephane Dion’s unlikely victory in 2006 spoke to the rigor mortis within the Liberal Party. The battle was largely between two complete newcomers to the party, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. These two lifelong friends brought a personal, though friendly, rivalry to the leadership contest. In fact, it was likely their respective determination to beat each other in a fight to the finish which made Dion’s victory possible. That cost Liberals dearly.

After being defeated by Stephen Harper in October 2008, all that mattered to Liberals and the parliamentary caucus was returning to power. If throwing their awkward leader overboard was what had to be done to get there, that’s what would be done. Past success is not a factor when it comes to the cold assessments made by Liberals calculating the electability of their leaders: both Jean Chretien, who won three consecutive majorities, and John Turner, who lost badly to Brian Mulroney in two elections, faced internal revolts which became major distractions to the leader and the party.

Against every democratic impulse that Liberals say they hold dear, Michael Ignatieff was anointed in 2009 without a single, solitary ballot having been cast. Did the “grassroots” object? Did caucus? Did anyone? Of course they didn’t. That’s because they were sure that the Liberal Party under Ignatieff would take back government. That was really all that mattered to them. That mindset permeated every level and personified the very worst of the Liberal Party and underscored how cynical it had become.”

That entitlement mindset personified the very worst of the Liberal Party and underscored how cynical it had become.

This pathology began shortly after Pierre Trudeau resigned and has continued for thirty years since. Leaders are treated with the same subtle finesse as throwing out yesterday’s garbage. The same is true of defeated MPs, party office holders, candidates, and a great many people that have made enormous contributions and personal sacrifices.

A natural turnover is good for an organization. But this is not renewal; it is systematic organ rejection. Over time, there’s nothing left but a rotting carcass.

Much responsibility for the leadership wars of the past thirty years is appropriately assigned to the naked and shallow ambition of the principals themselves. Yet casting blame on leadership aspirants alone is far too easy. Their actions and that of their surrogates was aided and abetted by the same so-called grassroots members that populate riding associations, provincial executives, and commissions that today call for “bottom-up” change.

A tenure system for an insecure and superficial caucus has also been a major systemic problem. Caucus and party “grassroots” must reflect upon their role as enablers and facilitators in our decline. They were, in fact, absolutely critical to it.

So, too, were a class of professional political operatives that served as the foot soldiers. These mercenaries hang their hats in government or public relations companies, law firms, advertising agencies, polling companies, accounting firms and industry associations. They have come to view themselves as the real power of the party, and in many important ways they are. Their professional prospects and standing is intimately linked to the success of their chosen candidate and party. These people have a direct financial stake in the outcome of elections and positions within parties. The professional cadre of party member requires very careful scrutiny. It is not at all a healthy or desirable thing.

The culture of the Liberal Party not only allowed for this self-destructive behavior to persist, it actively – and always surreptitiously – encouraged it. Just think of how long the Trudeau-Turner-Chretien-Martin wars lasted and how corrosive they became.

This prolonged period of internecine conflict resulted in factionalism and organizational decay that fed widespread suspicion and distrust. From the late 1970s, the party’s only discernible sense of shared purpose was power.

When Michael Ignatieff would tell party audiences that we had to earn the right to govern and earn the trust of Canadians, he was telling Liberals to get over the entitlement that is bred in their bones. They never liked that message, but he was absolutely right to make the case.

At the same time, Ignatieff felt the need to throw a bone to party stalwarts who pine for the wholly mythical glory days of Trudeau and say: “I have been a Liberal all my life. I knocked on doors for Pierre Trudeau”.

That line would always make me cringe because it signaled that only Liberals that come out of their mother’s womb are the true Liberals. It also suggested to me that independent and new thinking is not welcomed, and neither is doing anything but slavishly defending anything Liberal since the beginning of time.

Ignatieff did not need to prove his credentials as a Liberal. He has literally written books on what it means to believe in that creed and he is more Liberal than a great many party members will ever be.

The same is true of Bob Rae who many feel is not entitled to a position of leadership in the party because of his NDP pedigree. That is nonsense, of course. Rae did a great deal of genuine soul-searching and reflection before he decided to become a Liberal, and today he is one of the party’s most passionate and articulate advocates.

Like them or not (I like them both very much), both Ignatieff and Rae made the decisions they did for all the right reasons. They were grounded in principle, in ideas, in values, and in the dreams of what those can bring to create a prosperous, tolerant, progressive nation.

No one should feel the need to take a blood test or check their judgment at the door as a pre-condition for party membership and active participation in it. The great illusion of the Liberal Party of the past forty years is that the “Big Tent” theory of party lore.

The fact is that the tent has been shrinking for decades. And if you found yourself in that tent, you soon discovered all the party ever wanted was your vote and money, nothing else. The party has been run by a relatively small group of people for a long time. I would argue that so has the Conservative Party and the NDP. These are far from democratic organizations; they are closed shops.

Reforming the Liberal Party

The first task of renewal is facing the truth of what the problem is and being straight with each other about what should be done about it. There are encouraging signs that this is beginning to happen. The national executive has advanced some interesting and serious proposals on reforming internal organization and governance.

One of them is the proposal to select the leader by a “primary system”. I hope that the party will not jump into this project too quickly. Members have not even begun to consider the implications of such a move. It is certainly worthy of discussion and wider consultation and reflection, and has the potential of revolutionizing the way we conduct politics in this country.

But, I am not one of those who believe that leadership should be a secondary consideration. I like and admire the party for having the guts to seek out exceptionally accomplished people to stand for office and to become candidates for leader. I do not view that as an institutionalized “Messiah Complex”. Leadership matters a lot.

Why some Liberals fret over their leadership choices is a mystery to me. In my lifetime the Liberal Party has been led by Pearson, Trudeau, Turner, Chretien, Martin, Dion, and Ignatieff. When you think about the quality of these people as individuals, we can only be proud of this highly distinguished group. Today, as Interim Leader, Bob Rae is easily in this league. Not a bad record of picking good people, I’d say.

Another proposal for change is party organization. There, I believe we must go much further.

The party is an even looser confederation than Confederation itself. In fact, it is a dysfunctional mess. Reporting lines go to multiple places, management accountability is entirely absent, and funds are allocated inefficiently. Everyone wants to be a big fish in a shrinking pond. Provincial offices have their own staff that report to provincial executives, who in turn want to protect their own turf. In any rational management structure provincial offices should report directly to the executive director at national headquarters.

The better solution would be to close every single office, consolidate their activities in Ottawa, and give some real responsibility to regional vice presidents elected by members.

And what would I do with all those commissions and fancy officer titles that mean nothing and do even less? They would be toast – every last one of them.

An inordinate number of “commissions” serve no useful purpose other than being permanent fiefdoms and a power base for a few skilled operators. These lead to exclusion and a clique mentality. There’s a “commission” for everything. If you’re young, you’ve got one. If you’re old, you’ve got one. A woman? No problem, there’s one for you. Of course, where would Liberals be without an “Aboriginal” commission? Not to worry, we’ve got one of those, too.

At the national level there are “vice presidents” that represent you if you are English, French, and virtually everything else. I’m beginning to feel excluded because there isn’t a vice-president for white middle-aged men with black hair. You get the picture. There are provincial and territorial associations with their own presidents, executives, staffs, constitutions, and way too many sacred cows.

If the Liberal Party were a business, it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. It has become fat, lazy, complacent, and obsolete. It believed its old press clippings, refused to innovate, and it could not bring itself to change.

I want a boundaryless organization, not fenced-in ghettos. I want effectiveness, not internal warfare and jurisdictional resentments. I want every dollar we raise to be properly and strategically invested, not spent to prop-up an arcane bureaucracy designed for nothing more than to fuel the egos of a perma-class of apparatchiks.

The party’s organizational and management structure is itself an impediment to unity and coherence. In fact, it does quite the opposite. The perverse incentives are to maintain the fragmented and silo infested status quo. This costs money, is inefficient, and is divisive. But changing it will be hard, because what people ultimately care about is themselves and their own space, not the health and vitality of the party as a whole.

The Missing Ingredient: Unity of Purpose

Culturally and organizationally what we lack most is the key missing ingredient: unity of purpose.

That purpose cannot be to take power. It cannot be to defeat Conservatives. That purpose can only be building a better Canada. The Liberal Party of Canada must stand for something that Canadians care about. We must be a cause and a movement whose core reason for being is the advancement of a set of ideas and goals for Canada and our place in the world. That is where it all begins.

As a candidate, there was nothing that perplexed me more and at the same time infuriated me more than Liberals asking me: “Dan, what do we stand for?” That question would never cease to stop me dead in my tracks. Why in the world, I thought, would anyone join a political party if they had absolutely no clue what their membership even represents?

In a speech in Quebec City in 1878, Sir Wilfrid Laurier defined what being a Liberal meant to him. He said: “I am one of those who think that always and everywhere in human things there are abuses to be reformed, new horizons to be opened up, and new forces to be developed”. That is precisely why I joined the Liberal Party in 2009 and why I decided to run for office.

Liberals Must Rediscover Roots as Policy Innovators

I believe we must rediscover our roots and impulse as the original party of reform. Liberals must dare to be bold again in policy innovation that is firmly anchored around a reform agenda for the 21st century. Goodness knows, there is much to fix that needs fixing in Canada. The national interest, not political gimmicks, must always come first.

Economic growth and productivity must necessarily be the centerpiece of our action. For without them, everything else we want to achieve to create a more united, tolerant, caring and just society will be just a cruel pipedream.

We must lead the restoration of trust in our democratic institutions and resolve to modernize them. For me, that means constitutional renewal on a fundamental level. That includes reforming the House of Commons and Senate, bringing Quebec back into the fold, modernizing federal-provincial arrangements for the 21st century to strengthen our economic and social union, and deciding whether the hereditary monarchy has a place in the modern democracy of a proud and independent nation like ours.

We must forge our place in the world as constructive internationalists and be part of building global institutions that can serve as vehicles for constructive dialogue and peaceful co-existence. I believe it also means questioning whether it makes sense for Canada to remain in the military alliances of the Cold War era, or whether our capabilities have a greater impact elsewhere.

Our country has many problems that are made worse by the neglect of the Harper Conservatives. They are fundamental and structural obstacles to Canada’s economic and social development that have been ignored for far too long, by Conservative and Liberal governments alike. These are opportunities that call for sensible and pragmatic leadership. But in the times in which we live, they also require boldness and political courage.

Although in its early stages, I sense a developing resolve that I have not seen in the Liberal Party in a very long time. The sheer magnitude of the loss last May has given rise to a growing and invigorating commitment to reform. Optimism and determination seems to be taking root and gaining momentum.

At a gathering in Victoria last November, interim leader Bob Rae called on Liberals to end turf wars and feuds. Rae said Liberals have allowed “competing ambitions and warring factions” to erode the trust and confidence upon which successful organizations are built.” He also said that the party “Should not be controlled by small cliques or by people who try to keep people out because they’re afraid of losing control.” Rae’s message is an important and urgently needed one. Liberals must throw open their doors to fresh thinking. That is a vital precondition for genuine reform and renewal.

Canadians understandably don’t trust the irrational arrogance of blind partisanship. Neither do I. In fact, I hate it. It does a disservice to the party, but more importantly, it turns otherwise thoughtful people into character actors parroting a party line that typically is steeped in half-truths, at best.

It is one of the reasons why so many of our fellow citizens are turned-off and cynical about the political process because they are smart enough to see our cynicism for what it is. The fault is not in the “system”, but in us. People are the system. It is incumbent on us – all of us – to fix it. Canada is far more important than any party, including ours. But I think that Canada can be infinitely better off with a robust and healthy Liberal Party.

Liberals must put to rest the “natural governing party” culture and destroy the organizational vestiges of that era. We must confront hard realities and set ourselves on a path for meaningful internal reform and change. And Liberals must work to get our voice back. As Andrew Cohen wrote of Lester B. Pearson: “Making a bigger Canada became the mantra of his public life”.